Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Aldeer General Forum Bobcats

I'm a snake jumper. As in I jump outta my boots when I see a snake. The recent thread showing a snake inside a ground blind still gives me a chill up my spine every time I open up one of my ground blinds.

Also, all cats must die!

Bobcats are a neat, I let them all walk. I have been hunting a long time. They were part of nature. Hawks are also. I am 72 and counting, I have killed my share of game. All snakes get a pass except a poison one in camp are in yard. We have a King Snake that stays around our camp he is welcome.

All cats are bird killers. Housemates, bobcats.
Quail, Turkey.
Kill every bobcat

All cats are bird killers. Housemates, bobcats.
Quail, Turkey.
Kill every bobcat

Tikkamam
If that makes you happy and feel like a man go for it !!

I don't shoot em...

started on them in bullock county and have continued on our property and lease. kill every one i see.

i grew up listening to the second sweetest sound my ears heard - the bob white quail calling in the evenings - while sitting on my grandmother's front porch. it's a memory i cherish.

since taking as many as i could while hunting and then getting a couple or three in the traps, we now have quail. it has been more than 25 years since we've had quail at the farm. we not only go after the bobcat and coyote, but the fox, possum and raccoon as well...been very aggressive. it was worth it to me.

I don't anymore either..

I'd imagine fire ants are why you don't see as many quail, anymore. There were plenty of bobcats, coons, and opossums, etc., around back when there were also plenty of quail. And all the while, fire ants were still spreading like the plague they are. Sit down in the grass in your yard on a summer day, and it doesn't take long before the ants find you. The residual yoke/liquid when birds hatch is like a dinner bell for ants. When they build their nest, they leave a lot of tailings on the ground...perfect little sandy/dusty spot for something like a baby quail to dust himself in, and as soon as he does so, he's finished. Probably the same for rabbits, when they're born on/in the ground...

That's not to say that other animals don't take their share of quail/rabbits...obviously they do...and I kill every coyote, etc. I see, too. I just don't think they're single-handedly responsible for the decline in numbers we've seen. Way back years ago, people used to say that the decline in rabbit/quail populations was due in large part to feral cats...I've seen plenty of feral cats around an old barn, and whatnot, but if I've ever seen any truly "feral cats", like live in the woods and never see people cats, it's certainly not been enough to account for any movement in population numbers of prey animals.

I have a skull that I processed from a road kill. Only seen 5 in the woods and never shot one.

While I'm sure that fire ants don't help, they are not the real culprit. When the US went from small, sharecropper farmed land to large industrial farms, their habitat was killed. They thrived in the small lots and fencerows of the old farms. 100's of acre fields just don't give them any cover. I've also been told that the spraying of DDT harmed their ability to reproduce.

I've only seen one Bobcat while hunting. I saw the same one several times and it was cool to watch. I watched it stalk wood ducks from bank very stealthily. It just seems to be a much smaller threat than coyotes from a numbers standpoint. I let them walk.

i'll also add they are opportunistic - in late 2010 or early 2011 (january), pete and i were setup to shoot a couple of does at the same time. didn't work out as only a single doe entered the field. pete shot it. we decided to wait to see if anymore would come in before dark thirty. pete sees something slipping along the edge of the woods and thought it was a coyote. binoculars proved bobcat. i told him he had better kill that bobcat 'cause it was gonna get his deer. the cat slipped around a couple of trees and came up the backside of where the doe was on the ground. as the Good Lord as our witness, the cat tried to drag the deer away. quick shot from the .243 and robert kitty took a dirt nap.

when we had the lease behind the farm, i had one trying to ease up on me while i was sitting in a lawn chair. tripod had blown over when i used heavy duty landscaping fabric to conceal the seat in the tower part. when it hit the dirt, the legs bent. i let it lay in the logging road and brought in a lawn chair. was watching a greenfield one morning when movement to the left caught my eye. watched robert kitty slip my way til i wasn't comfortable with the distance he had made.

I tend to agree with DeadorAlive about the fire ants being the biggest culprit in the decline of the quail population. I've been saying that for years, and that's the first time I've ever heard anyone else even mention it. I don't see how a young quail stands a chance. I think they hurt the turkeys too. A young chick wanting to dust, and the first few hours after the eggs hatch have to take a beating... That being said, I usually will kill a bobcat, given the chance... Nothing I can do about the ants... But I can help with the bobcats and coyotes

I don't think I've seen a quail in the twenty years I've lived in Alabama. I used to see them fairly frequently in Florida.

Here's one I video'd a couple weeks ago carrying a big squirrel in his mouth. I see them pretty regular. Used to shoot them,then I quit.